Today is Thursday, Dec. 26, the 361st day of 2024. There are five days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami with waves up to 100 feet (30 meters) high, killing an estimated 230,000 people.

Also on this date:

In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first Black boxer to win the world heavyweight championship as he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.

In 1941, during World War II, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

In 1966, Kwanzaa was first celebrated.

In 1990, Nancy Cruzan, a young woman in an irreversible vegetative state whose case led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the right to die, died at a Missouri hospital.

In 1991, the USSR was formally dissolved through a declaration by the Supreme Soviet.

In 2006, former President Gerald R. Ford died in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 93.

In 2021, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu died at 90; the retired archbishop had been an uncompromising foe of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBTQ rights.

Today’s Birthdays:

• “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh is 79.
• Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk is 77.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith is 70.
• Humorist David Sedaris is 68.
• Rock musician Lars Ulrich (Metallica) is 61.
• Actor-musician Jared Leto is 53.
• Rock singer Chris Daughtry is 45.
• Actor Beth Behrs is 39.
• Actor Kit Harington is 38.

DETROIT (AP) — At the beginning of November, the Pittsburgh Panthers were 7-0 and dreaming of finishing the season in the College Football Playoff.

Instead, they were spending their Christmas in Detroit.

Pitt went 0-5 in November, losing to SMU, Virginia, Clemson, Louisville and Boston College before accepting an invitation to the GameAbove Sports Bowl on Thursday at Ford Field, where they face Toledo.

The Panthers have made this trip before, beating Mid-American Conference opponents in Detroit in 2013 (30-27 over Bowling Green) and 2019 (34-30 over Eastern Michigan), but this trip is a little different. More than a dozen players have left the program to enter the transfer portal, and the Panthers will be missing one of their top offensive weapons.

Konata Mumpfield, who caught 52 passes for 813 yards and five touchdowns, is preparing for the NFL draft and won’t be participating in the bowl game. Pitt expects to have quarterback Eli Holstein back after he missed the BC game with an injury sustained against Louisville. Holstein threw for 2,225 yards and 17 touchdowns while rushing for three more.

Even with the missing players, coach Pat Narduzzi was not treating the game as an afterthought.

“I’m always looking forward, not backward,” he said. “Every win is important, and we want to play the best possible football game.”

Home for the holidays

For Toledo, playing at Ford Field is practically a home game. The drive is only about an hour, and whatever name the bowl game at Ford Field goes by, it often draws some of its biggest crowds when the Rockets are representing the MAC.

“It’s a great opportunity for our fan base to support the team in our last game of the season,” Toledo coach Jason Candle said. “We could have been out of the country or in one of many distant cities, some of which aren’t easy to get to, but this is accessible and I think our fans are excited.”

One-man attack

With Mumpfield gone, the Pitt offense is fairly simple. Desmond Reid is the team’s leading rusher, with 794 yards and four touchdowns, and he’s now the leading receiver, with 564 yards and four more scores. He didn’t reach 100 yards rushing in any of the five losses to end the regular season, but he did reach triple figures in total yards in three of them and had 99 against Virginia.

There’s not much behind him — Holstein (328) is the only other rusher with more than 250 yards, and wide receiver Kenny Johnson (520) is the only other player with more than 400 yards receiving.

Not much of a ground game

While Toledo quarterback Tucker Gleason threw for 2,457 yards and 22 touchdowns, including 949 yards and 11 scores to wideout Jerjuan Newton, they don’t pose much of a threat on the ground.

Connor Walendzak led the team in rushing with 457 yards but scored only once, and Gleason is second with 330 yards. He did score six times, but the Rockets were likely to struggled badly against a Pitt defense that allowed only 3.1 yards per carry and held opponents to 17 rushing touchdowns in 12 games.

Not a heated rivalry

Although Pitt and Toledo are separated by only 230 miles, the football rivalry has never taken off. The Panthers and Rockets have faced each other three times, all between 2002 and 2006.

Pitt won twice at home, including a 45-3 victory in 2006, but Toledo pulled off a 35-31 victory at the Glass Bowl in 2003.

Climbing the record books

If Toledo beats the shorthanded Panthers on Boxing Day, Candle will tie Gary Pinkel’s school record of 73 career victories.

— By DAVE HOGG, Associated Press

Caitlin Clark raised the profile of women’s basketball to unprecedented levels in both the college ranks and the WNBA, and Tuesday she was named the AP Female Athlete of the Year for her impact on and off the court.

After leading Iowa to the national championship game, Clark was the top pick in the WNBA draft as expected and went on to win rookie of the year honors in the league. Fans packed sold-out arenas and millions of television viewers tuned in to follow her journey. Clark’s exploits were far reaching, casting a light on other women’s sports leagues along the way.

A group of 74 sports journalists from The Associated Press and its members voted on the award. Clark received 35 votes, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25 and boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting four votes.

Clark is only the fourth women’s basketball player to be honored as the female athlete of the year since it was first presented in 1931, joining Sheryl Swoopes (1993), Rebecca Lobo (1995) and Candace Parker (2008, 2021).

“I grew up a fan of Candace Parker and the people who came before me and to be honored in this way, is super special and I’m thankful,” Clark said in a phone interview. “It was a great year for women’s basketball and women’s sports.”

Shohei Ohtani won the AP Male Athlete of the Year on Monday for the third time.

Clark broke the NCAA Division I career scoring record for both men and women finishing her career with 3,951 points while guiding Iowa to its second consecutive national championship game. After her Hawkeyes lost t South Carolina for the title, Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley took the mic during her team’s celebration and said, “I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport.”

For all the success Clark has had and the attention she has brought to women’s basketball, she is often the centerpiece of debates and online toxicity towards her and other players in the league.

For her part, Clark has disavowed the toxic discourse.

Lobo also has been impressed with the way the 22-year-old Clark has handled the pressure and attention that has come her way.

“I would say she’s navigated it almost flawlessly. she hasn’t had an big missteps or misspeaks at a time you’re under constant scrutiny,” Lobo said. “She’s seemed to say and do all the right things. That’s just incredible at a time when it’s constant attention and scrutiny. She has not done anything to tarnish this sort of mild persona she has.”

As Clark handled the praise — and the backlash — during the heat of competition, it was hard for her to appreciate just what she was able accomplish over the past year. But after having time to reflect on the whirlwind tour, she appreciates those who were there alongside her for the ride.

“I’m thankful for the people I got to do it with,” Clark said. “A year ago I was still in the early part of my senior year in college. … How fast things change, and now I can see how great a college season it was.”

Iowa sold out all of its games at home and on the road with Clark as the main attraction. That momentum continued into the pros. Her No. 22 jersey was prevalent wherever she played during her rookie season and will be retired at Iowa.

“You’d be remiss not to acknowledge how crazy her fan base is and the eyes she gets with everything she does,” said Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who was often spotted courtside at Clark’s Indiana Fever games. “It’s a different type of popularity, she’s one of the most popular athletes in the world. It’s not just women’s sports anymore.

“It’s really cool to see and she just handles it with such grace.”

Clark said she enjoys spending time with fans at games, usually taking a few minutes before and after games to sign autographs.

“For me it’s still really fun,” she said. “Whether it’s 15 seconds or 10 seconds or 5 seconds can be very impactful in a young girl and young boys life. Seeing the fans going crazy an hour before tipoff, I never take that for granted. That’s super cool and I never want that to go away.”

After a slow start to her WNBA career, Clark eventually found her stride there too. She set the single-game assist record with 19 and also had 337 assists on the season to break that mark as well. Clark, known for her logo-distance 3-pointers, was the fastest player to reach 100 3’s when she did it in 34 games which helped Indiana reach the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Lobo, who won the AP female athlete of the year award after lifting UConn to its first national championship, was on the court for launch of the WNBA two years later. The ESPN analyst sees Clark’s ascension as something different.

“She’s brought unprecedented attention both in the building, but also viewership to the sport that was worthy of it but didn’t have it yet,” Lobo said. “There’s never been anything like this.

“That timeframe from 1995-97 was a baby step in the progression of it all. This is a giant leap forward. I’ve never seen anything like this. There’s more attention then the sports ever had.”

The numbers have been record breaking when Clark is part of a broadcast:

— TV viewership in the WNBA was up 300% thanks in large part to Clark with ABC, CBS, ION, ESPN, and ESPN2 all having record viewers when Fever games were on.

— The NCAA women’s championship game outdrew the men on TV for the first time in the sport’s 42-year history with 18.9 million viewers tuning it to watch the event. It was the second most watched women’s sporting event outside of the Olympics in the history of U.S. television.

— The 2024 WNBA draft was the most-watched in league history with 2.4 million viewers.

Clark credits the community of women athletes for the popularity increase of women’s sports, saying “we” did this or “we” did that when asked about it.

“It’s fascinating, you don’t always appreciate how many people 18 million is,” Clark said. “You see that number against a college football game or the Masters or whatever it is as far as the biggest sporting events in our country and it puts it in perspective. We outdrew the men’s Final Four.”

— By DOUG FEINBERG, Associated Press

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 25, the 360th day of 2024. There are six days left in the year. This is Christmas Day.

Today in history:

On Dec. 25, 1776, Gen. George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey, during the American Revolutionary War.

Also on this date:

In 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned King of England.

In 1818, “Silent Night (Stille Nacht)” was publicly performed for the first time during the Christmas Midnight Mass at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson granted unconditional pardons to “every person who directly or indirectly” supported the Confederacy in the Civil War.

In 1926, Hirohito became emperor of Japan, succeeding his father, Emperor Yoshihito.

In 1989, ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu (chow-SHES’-koo) and his wife, Elena, were executed following a populist uprising.

In 2009, passengers aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 foiled an attempt to blow up the plane as it was landing in Detroit by seizing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (OO’-mahr fah-ROOK’ ahb-DOOL’-moo-TAH’-lahb), who tried to set off explosives in his underwear. (Abdulmutallab later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope, rocketed away from French Guiana in South America on a quest to see light from the first stars and galaxies and search the universe for signs of life.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Football Hall of Famer Larry Csonka is 78.
• Country singer Barbara Mandrell is 76.
• Actor Sissy Spacek is 75.
• Former White House adviser Karl Rove is 74.
• Actor CCH Pounder is 72.
• Singer Annie Lennox is 70.
• Country singer Steve Wariner is 70.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson is 66.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is 53.
• Actor Jeremy Strong is 46.

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump promised on Tuesday to “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions.

Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was senseless and insulted the families of their victims. Biden said converting their punishments to life imprisonment was consistent with the moratorium imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.

“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” he wrote on his social media site. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”

Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated,” but was vague on what specific actions he may take and said they would be in cases of “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”

He highlighted the cases of two men who were on federal death row for slaying a woman and a girl, had admitted to killing more and had their sentences commuted by Biden.

Is it a plan in motion or more rhetoric?

On the campaign trail, Trump often called for expanding the federal death penalty — including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill U.S. citizens.

“Trump has been fairly consistent in wanting to sort of say that he thinks the death penalty is an important tool and he wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing at Ohio State University’s law school. “But whether practically any of that can happen, either under existing law or other laws, is a heavy lift.”

Berman said Trump’s statement at this point seems to be just a response to Biden’s commutation.

“I’m inclined to think it’s still in sort of more the rhetoric phase. Just, ‘don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,’” he said.

Most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to decades of annual polling by Gallup, but support has declined over the past few decades. About half of Americans were in favor in an October poll, while roughly 7 in 10 Americans backed capital punishment for murderers in 2007.

Death row inmates are mostly sentenced by states

Before Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal death row inmates compared with more than 2,000 who have been sentenced to death by states.

“The reality is all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Berman said.

A question is whether the Trump administration would try to take over some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also attempt to take cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.

Could rape now be punishable by death?

Berman said Trump’s statement, along with some recent actions by states, may present an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that considers the death penalty disproportionate punishment for rape.

“That would literally take decades to unfold. It’s not something that is going to happen overnight,” Berman said.

Before one of Trump’s rallies on Aug. 20, his prepared remarks released to the media said he would announce he would ask for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered the line.

What were the cases highlighted by Trump?

One of the men Trump highlighted on Tuesday was ex-Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl in a suburban Chicago park several years before.

The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, days after shooting the girl’s mother in a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records show he admitted to both killings.

Some families of victims expressed anger with Biden’s decision, but the president had faced pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The ACLU and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were some of the groups that applauded the decision.

Biden left three federal inmates to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan have announced plans to work toward a merger that would form the worlds third-largest automaker by sales, as the industry undergoes dramatic changes in its transition away from fossil fuels.

The two companies said they had signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday and that smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors Corp. also had agreed to join the talks on integrating their businesses.

Automakers in Japan have lagged behind their big rivals in electric vehicles and are trying to cut costs and make up for lost time as newcomers like China's BYD and EV market leader Tesla devour market share.

Honda's president, Toshihiro Mibe, said Honda and Nissan will attempt to unify their operations under a joint holding company. Honda will lead the new management, retaining the principles and brands of each company. They aim to have a formal merger agreement by June and to complete the deal and list the holding company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange by August 2026, he said.

No dollar value was given and the formal talks are just starting, Mibe said.

There are points that need to be studied and discussed, he said. Frankly speaking, the possibility of this not being implemented is not zero.

A merger could result in a behemoth worth more than $50 billion based on the market capitalization of all three automakers. Together, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi would gain scale to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. and with Germanys Volkswagen AG. Toyota has technology partnerships with Japans Mazda Motor Corp. and Subaru Corp.

News of a possible merger surfaced earlier this month, with unconfirmed reports saying Taiwan iPhone maker Foxconn was seeking to tie up with Nissan by buying shares from the Japan's company's other alliance partner, Renault SA of France.

Nissan's CEO Makoto Uchida said Foxconn had not directly approach his company. He also acknowledged that Nissan's situation was severe.

Even after a merger Toyota, which rolled out 11.5 million vehicles in 2023, would remain the leading Japanese automaker. If they join, the three smaller companies would make about 8 million vehicles. In 2023, Honda made 4 million and Nissan produced 3.4 million. Mitsubishi Motors made just over 1 million.

We have come to the realization that in order for both parties to be leaders in this mobility transformation, it is necessary to make a more bold change than a collaboration in specific areas, Mibe said.

Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi earlier agreed to share components for electric vehicles like batteries and to jointly research software for autonomous driving to adapt better to electrification.

Nissan has struggled following a scandal that began with the arrest of its former chairman Carlos Ghosn in late 2018 on charges of fraud and misuse of company assets, allegations that he denies. He eventually was released on bail and fled to Lebanon.

Speaking Monday to reporters in Tokyo via a video link, Ghosn derided the planned merger as a desperate move.

From Nissan, Honda could get truck-based body-on-frame large SUVs such as the Armada and Infiniti QX80 that Honda doesnt have, with large towing capacities and good off-road performance, Sam Fiorani, vice president of AutoForecast Solutions, told The Associated Press.

Nissan also has years of experience building batteries and electric vehicles, and gas-electric hybrid powertrains that could help Honda in developing its own EVs and next generation of hybrids, he said.

But the company said in November that it was slashing 9,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global work force, and reducing its global production capacity by 20% after reporting a quarterly loss of 9.3 billion yen ($61 million).

It recently reshuffled its management and Uchida, its chief executive, took a 50% pay cut while acknowledging responsibility for the financial woes, saying Nissan needed to become more efficient and respond better to market tastes, rising costs and other global changes.

We anticipate that if this integration comes to fruition, we will be able to deliver even greater value to a wider customer base, Uchida said.

Fitch Ratings recently downgraded Nissans credit outlook to negative, citing worsening profitability, partly due to price cuts in the North American market. But it noted that it has a strong financial structure and solid cash reserves that amounted to 1.44 trillion yen ($9.4 billion).

Nissans share price also had fallen to the point where it is considered something of a bargain. On Monday, its Tokyo-traded shares gained 1.6%. They jumped more than 20% after news of the possible merger broke last week.

Honda's shares surged 3.8%. Honda's net profit slipped nearly 20% in the first half of the April-March fiscal year from a year earlier, as its sales suffered in China.

The merger reflects an industry-wide trend toward consolidation.

At a routine briefing Monday, Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said he would not comment on details of the automakers' plans, but said Japanese companies need to stay competitive in the fast changing market.

As the business environment surrounding the automobile industry largely changes, with competitiveness in storage batteries and software is increasingly important, we expect measures needed to survive international competition will be taken," Hayashi said.

___

Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok.

By WILL WEISSERT, JUAN ZAMORANO and GARY FIELDS

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Teddy Roosevelt once declared the Panama Canal “one of the feats to which the people of this republic will look back with the highest pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump is threatening to take back the waterway for the same republic.

The president-elect is decrying increased fees Panama has imposed to use the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He says if things don’t change after he takes office next month, “We will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.”

Trump has long threatened allies with punitive action in hopes of winning concessions. But experts in both countries are clear: Unless he goes to war with Panama, Trump can’t reassert control over a canal the U.S. agreed to cede in the 1970s.

Here’s a look at how we got here:

What is the canal?

It is a man-made waterway that uses a series of locks and reservoirs over 51 miles (82 kilometers) to cut through the middle of Panama and connect the Atlantic and Pacific. It spares ships having to go an additional roughly 7,000 miles (more than 11,000 kilometers) to sail around Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip.

The U.S. International Trade Administration says the canal saves American business interests “considerable time and fuel costs” and enables faster delivery of goods, which is “particularly significant for time sensitive cargoes, perishable goods, and industries with just-in-time supply chains.”

Who built it?

An effort to establish a canal through Panama led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built Egypt’s Suez Canal, began in 1880 but progressed little over nine years before going bankrupt.

Malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases devastated a workforce already struggling with especially dangerous terrain and harsh working conditions in the jungle, eventually costing more than 20,000 lives, by some estimates.

Panama was then a province of Colombia, which refused to ratify a subsequent 1901 treaty licensing U.S. interests to build the canal. Roosevelt responded by dispatching U.S. warships to Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The U.S. also prewrote a constitution that would be ready after Panamanian independence, giving American forces “the right to intervene in any part of Panama, to re-establish public peace and constitutional order.”

In part because Colombian troops were unable to traverse harsh jungles, Panama declared an effectively bloodless independence within hours in November 1903. It soon signed a treaty allowing a U.S.-led team to begin construction.

Some 5,600 workers died later during the U.S.-led construction project, according to one study.

Why doesn’t the US control the canal anymore?

The waterway opened in 1914, but almost immediately some Panamanians began questioning the validity of U.S. control, leading to what became known in the country as the “generational struggle” to take it over.

The U.S. abrogated its right to intervene in Panama in the 1930s. By the 1970s, with its administrative costs sharply increasing, Washington spent years negotiating with Panama to cede control of the waterway.

The Carter administration worked with the government of Omar Torrijos. The two sides eventually decided that their best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the U.S. Senate, the “Permanent Neutrality Treaty” and the “Panama Canal Treaty.”

The first, which continues in perpetuity, gives the U.S. the right to act to ensure the canal remains open and secure. The second stated that the U.S. would turn over the canal to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, and was terminated then.

Both were signed in 1977 and ratified the following year. The agreements held even after 1989, when President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

In the late 1970s, as the handover treaties were being discussed and ratified, polls found that about half of Americans opposed the decision to cede canal control to Panama. However, by the time ownership actually changed in 1999, public opinion had shifted, with about half of Americans in favor.

What’s happened since then?

Administration of the canal has been more efficient under Panama than during the U.S. era, with traffic increasing 17% between fiscal years 1999 and 2004. Panama’s voters approved a 2006 referendum authorizing a major expansion of the canal to accommodate larger modern cargo ships. The expansion took until 2016 and cost more than $5.2 billion.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a video Sunday that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to.” He added that, while his country’s people are divided on some key issues, “when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under our Panamanian flag.”

Shipping prices have increased because of droughts last year affecting the canal locks, forcing Panama to drastically cut shipping traffic through the canal and raise rates to use it. Though the rains have mostly returned, Panama says future fee increases might be necessary as it undertakes improvements to accommodate modern shipping needs.

Mulino said fees to use the canal are “not set on a whim.”

Jorge Luis Quijano, who served as the waterway’s administrator from 2014 to 2019, said all canal users are subject to the same fees, though they vary by ship size and other factors.

“I can accept that the canal’s customers may complain about any price increase,” Quijano said. “But that does not give them reason to consider taking it back.”

Why has Trump raised this?

The president-elect says the U.S. is getting “ripped off” and “I’m not going to stand for it.”

“It was given to Panama and to the people of Panama, but it has provisions — you’ve got to treat us fairly. And they haven’t treated us fairly,” Trump said of the 1977 treaty that he said “foolishly” gave the canal away.

The neutrality treaty does give the U.S. the right to act if the canal’s operation is threatened due to military conflict — but not to reassert control.

“There’s no clause of any kind in the neutrality agreement that allows for the taking back of the canal,” Quijano said. “Legally, there’s no way, under normal circumstances, to recover territory that was used previously.”

Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t said how he might make good on his threat.

“There’s very little wiggle room, absent a second U.S. invasion of Panama, to retake control of the Panama Canal in practical terms,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Gedan said Trump’s stance is especially baffling given that Mulino is a pro-business conservative who has “made lots of other overtures to show that he would prefer a special relationship with the United States.” He also noted that Panama in recent years has moved closer to China, meaning the U.S. has strategic reasons to keep its relationship with the Central American nation friendly.

Panama is also a U.S. partner on stopping illegal immigration from South America — perhaps Trump’s biggest policy priority.

“If you’re going to pick a fight with Panama on an issue,” Gedan said, “you could not find a worse one than the canal.”

Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida, and Fields from Washington. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed to this report from Washington.

By CLAIRE RUSH

President-elect Donald Trump has once again suggested he wants to revert the name of North America’s tallest mountain — Alaska’s Denali — to Mount McKinley, wading into a sensitive and decades-old conflict about what the peak should be called.

Former President Barack Obama changed the official name to Denali in 2015 to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives as well as the preference of many Alaska residents. The federal government in recent years has endeavored to change place-names considered disrespectful to Native people.

“Denali” is an Athabascan word meaning “the high one” or “the great one.” A prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak “Mount McKinley” after President William McKinley, who had never been to Alaska. That name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until Obama changed it over opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.

Trump suggested in 2016 that he might undo Obama’s action, but he dropped that notion after Alaska’s senators objected. He raised it again during a rally in Phoenix on Sunday.

“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump said Sunday. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”

Once again, Trump’s suggestion drew quick opposition within Alaska.

“Uh. Nope. It’s Denali,” Democratic state Sen. Scott Kawasaki posted on the social platform X Sunday night.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who for years pushed for legislation to change the name to Denali, conveyed a similar sentiment in a post of her own.

“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali — the Great One,” Murkowski wrote on X.

Various tribes of Athabascan people have lived in the shadow of the 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain for thousands of years.

McKinley, a Republican native of Ohio who served as the 25th president, was assassinated early in his second term in 1901 in Buffalo, New York.

Alaska and Ohio have been at odds over the name since at least the 1970s. Alaska had a standing request to change the name since 1975, when the legislature passed a resolution and then-Gov. Jay Hammond appealed to the federal government.

Known for its majestic views, the mountain is dotted with glaciers and covered at the top with snow year-round, with powerful winds that make it difficult for the adventurous few who seek to climb it.

Rush reported from Portland, Oregon.

By LISA MASCARO and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee’s long-awaited report on Matt Gaetz documents a trove of salacious allegations, including sex with an underage girl, that tanked the Florida Republican’s bid to lead the Justice Department.

Citing text messages, travel receipts, online payments and testimony, the bipartisan committee paints a picture of a lifestyle in which Gaetz and others connected with younger women for drug-fueled parties, events or trips, with the expectation the women would be paid for their participation.

The former congressman, who filed a last-minute lawsuit to try to block the report’s release on Monday, slammed the committee’s findings. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and has insisted he never had sex with a minor. And a Justice Department investigation into the allegations ended without any criminal charges filed against him.

“Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” Gaetz wrote in one post on Monday. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

Here’s a look at some of the committee’s key findings:

‘Sex-for-money arrangements,’ drug-fueled parties and trips

The committee found that between 2017 and 2020, Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women “likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.” He paid the women using through online services such as PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp and with cash or check, the committee said.

The committee said it found evidence that Gaetz understood the “transactional nature” of his relationships with the women. The report points to one text exchange in which Gaetz balked at a woman’s request that he send her money, “claiming she only gave him a ‘drive by.’”

Women interviewed by the committee said there was a “general expectation of sex,” the report said. One woman who received more than $5,000 from Gaetz between 2018 and 2019 said that “99 percent of the time” that when she hung out with Gaetz “there was sex involved.”

However, Gaetz was in a long-term relationship with one of the women he paid, so “some of the payments may have been of a legitimate nature,” the committee said.

Text messages obtained by the committee also show that Gaetz would ask the women to bring drugs to their “rendezvous,” the report said.

While most of his encounters with the women were in Florida, the committee said Gaetz also traveled “on several occasions” with women whom he paid for sex. The report includes text message exchanges in which Gaetz appears to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties, and arranging airplane travel and lodging.

Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking charges in 2021, initially connected with women through an online service.

In one text with a 20-year-old woman, Greenberg suggested if she has a friend, the four of them could meet up. The woman responded that she usually does “$400 per meet.” Greenberg replied: “He understands the deal,” along with a smiley face emoji. Greenberg asks if they are old enough to drink alcohol, and sent the woman a picture of Gaetz. The woman responded that her friend found him “really cute.”

“Well, he’s down here for only for the day, we work hard and play hard,” Greenberg replied.

‘Substantial evidence’ indicates that Gaetz had sex with underage girl, the committee said

The report details a party in July 2017 in which Gaetz is accused of having sex with “multiple women, including the 17-year-old, for which they were paid.” The committee pointed to “credible testimony” from the now-woman herself as well as “multiple individuals” who corroborated the allegation.

The then-17-year-old — who had just completed her junior year in high school — told the committee that Gaetz paid her $400 in cash that night, “which she understood to be payment for sex,” according to the report. The woman acknowledged that she had taken ecstasy the night of the party, but told the committee that she was “certain” of her sexual encounters with the then-congressman.

There’s no evidence that Gaetz knew she was a minor when he had sex with her, the committee said. The woman told the committee she didn’t tell Gaetz she was under 18 at the time and that he didn’t how old she was. Rather, the committee said Gaetz learned she was a minor more than a month after the party.

But he stayed in touch with her after that and met up with her for “commercial sex” again less than six months after she turned 18, according to the committee.

Gaetz said evidence would ‘exonerate’ him but provided none of it

In sum, the committee said it authorized 29 subpoenas for documents and testimony, reviewed nearly 14,000 documents and contacted more than two dozen witnesses.

But when the committee subpoenaed Gaetz for his testimony, he failed to comply.

“Gaetz pointed to evidence that would ‘exonerate’ him yet failed to produce any such materials,” the committee said. Gaetz “continuously sought to deflect, deter, or mislead the Committee in order to prevent his actions from being exposed.”

The report details a months-long process that dragged into a year as it sought information from Gaetz that he decried as “nosey” and a “weaponization” of government against him.

In one notable exchange, investigators were seeking information about the expenses for a 2018 get-away with multiple women to the Bahamas. Gaetz ultimately offered up his plane ticket receipt “to” the destination, but declined to share his return “from” the Bahamas.

The report said his return on a private plane and other expenses paid by an associate were in violation of House gift rules.

In another Gaetz told the committee he would “welcome” the opportunity to respond to written questions. Yet, after it sent a list of 16 questions, Gaetz said publicly he would “no longer” voluntarily cooperate.

He called the investigation “frivolous,” adding: “Every investigation into me ends the same way: my exoneration.”

The report said that while Gaetz’s obstruction of the investigation does not rise to a criminal violation it is inconsistent with the requirement that all members of Congress “act in a manner that reflects creditably upon the House.”

Justice Department didn’t cooperate with the committee

The committee began its review of Gaetz in April 2021 and deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request. It renewed its work shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended a sex trafficking investigation without filing any charges against him.

The committee sought records from the Justice Department about the probe, but the agency refused, saying it doesn’t disclose information about investigations that don’t result in charges.

The committee then subpoenaed the Justice Department, but after a back-and-forth between officials and the committee, the department handed over “publicly reported information about the testimony of a deceased individual,” according to the report.

“To date, DOJ has provided no meaningful evidence or information to the Committee or cited any lawful basis for its responses,” the committee said.

Many of the women who the committee spoke to had already given statements to the Justice Department and didn’t want to “relive their experience,” the committee said. “They were particularly concerned with providing additional testimony about a sitting congressman in light of DOJ’s lack of action on their prior testimony,” the report said.

The Justice Department, however, never handed over the women’s statements. The agency’s lack of cooperation — along with its request that the committee pause its investigation — significantly delayed the committee’s probe, lawmakers said.

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Southern California jumped to No. 4 in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll on Monday after edging UConn.

Michigan and Michigan State both dropped in the poll — the Spartans down four spots to No. 19 after their first loss and the Wolverines down three spots to No. 23 after their second — after setbacks last week.

The Trojans moved up three spots in the AP Top 25 after beating the then-No. 4 Huskies 72-70 on Saturday night in a rematch of last season’s Elite Eight game that UConn won.

“It feels great to get the dub always,” USC star JuJu Watkins said after the victory. “I think it hit a little different knowing the history of last year and how they sent us home.”

This was the Trojans’ first win ever over UConn.

“This is a really significant win, and it’s a really significant win because of the stature of UConn’s program and what Geno Auriemma has done for our sport,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “It doesn’t matter to me that they haven’t won a championship in a couple years. There’s still a way that they prepare, a way that they play, that makes you better, and it made us better.”

UCLA, South Carolina and Notre Dame remained the top three teams. The Bruins received 30 of the 32 first-place votes from a national media panel. The Gamecocks and the Fighting Irish each got one first-place vote.

UConn fell to seventh behind Texas and LSU.

Maryland, Oklahoma and Ohio State rounded out the top 10 teams.

Falling Blue Devils

Duke dropped five spots to No. 14 after losing to South Florida on Saturday. The Blue Devils’ other two losses this season were to Maryland and South Carolina. The Bulls are 7-6 on the season, with four of those losses coming against ranked opponents (UConn, Louisville, TCU and South Carolina).

Welcome back

Alabama jumped back into the poll at No. 20 two weeks after falling out. The Crimson Tide had an impressive 82-67 victory over Michigan State, handing the Spartans their first loss of the season. It was Alabama’s first victory over a ranked opponent this year.

Conference breakdown

The Southeastern Conference has eight teams in the poll this week with Alabama’s return. The Big Ten is next with seven. The ACC has six while the Big 12 has three and the Big East one.

Game of the week

No. 23 Michigan at No. 4 USC, Sunday. The Wolverines start Big Ten play with a trip to Los Angeles to face the Trojans on Sunday and then the Bruins a few days later. Coach Kim Barnes Arico’s young team is off to a 10-2 start.

— By DOUG FEINBERG, Associated Press

By ALICIA RANCILIO, Associated Press

Hollywood cranks out holiday programming as fast as toys are made in Santa’s workshop with broadcast networks, cable channels and streaming services offering seasonal specials.

This year’s options include three sequels to the 2023 Hallmark Channel hit “Christmas on Cherry Lane,” a docuseries following what happens when a letter to Santa is dropped in the mail, and the stop-motion classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Below are 10 options to get you in the Christmas spirit:

— Lindsay Lohan stars in a new holiday rom-com for Netflix called “Our Little Secret,” out Wednesday. Lohan and Ian Harding (“Pretty Little Liars”), play exes who find themselves spending Christmas together after discovering they’re now dating siblings. “It has a lot of heart and it’s very funny and I think that’s what we need in film these days,” Lohan told The Associated Press in an interview. Kristin Chenoweth is in it too.

— “Dear Santa, The Series” will warm the soul like a cup of hot chocolate. Now in its second season, the show highlights the United States Postal Service’s Operation Santa program where children write letters to Santa and a team of Elves help to grant their holiday wishes. The new season streams on Hulu beginning Friday.

— Candace Cameron Bure and Cameron Mathison star in “Home Sweet Christmas” as former childhood friends who reunite after the death of a family member who leaves his maple sugar farm to them both. It premieres Sunday on Great American Family.

— Remember the 1985 film “Brewster’s Millions” starring Richard Pryor and John Candy? The comedy classic has been updated with a holiday twist. “Brewster’s Millions: Christmas” stars China Anne McClain as Morgan Brewster, a wealthy heiress who will lose her family’s fortune unless she completes a series of tasks in time for Christmas. It premieres Dec. 5 on BET+. The film also stars Romeo Miller and two of Pryor’s children, Richard Pryor Jr. and Rain Pryor.

— The 2023 Hallmark movie “Christmas on Cherry Lane” was a big hit for the network. It followed three families on Christmas Eve who live in the same home in different time periods. Three sequels will stream on Hallmark+, spanning from 1951 to present day. Jonathan Bennett, Vincent Rodriguez III star in the first sequel, “Season’s Greetings from Cherry Lane,” debuting Dec. 5. “Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane” premieres Dec. 12 starring Catherine Bell and James Denton. The third film, ‘Deck the Halls on Cherry Lane” arrives Dec. 19 with Erin Cahill and Brooke D’Orsay.

— An original holiday romance movie called “A Season to Remember” airs Dec. 7 on OWN. Michele Weaver plays a sports reporter who works hard to prove herself in a male-dominated industry but still sometimes gets overlooked for opportunities. The pressure is on to find a compelling story the week before Christmas. Weaver teams up with a freelance photographer (Nathan Owens) who helps her find romance, confidence and the right path.

— Freeform has designated its December programming, “25 Days of Christmas” with holiday fare airing from morning to midnight. Dec. 8 is a highlight with Tim Allen’s ”The Santa Clause” franchise and the 1964 stop motion classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and 1969’s “Frosty the Snowman.”

— Smokey Robinson and Halle Bailey host NBC “A Motown Christmas Special” on Dec. 11 (streaming next day on Peacock). Motown legends including Robinson, Gladys Knight and the Temptations sing some of their best-known songs as well as Christmas tunes. Bailey will perform a medley of music by Diana Ross and the Supremes, while Jamie Foxx will lead a Stevie Wonder tribute featuring Andra Day, Bebe Winans and Jordin Sparks. An 11-piece live band will accompany the performances.

—- A new double-episode Christmas edition of “The Simpsons” called “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” streams on Disney+ on Dec. 17. A famous mentalist arrives in Springfield and uses his mind tricks to boost holiday spirits. When Homer gets hypnotized and believes he’s Santa Clause, it causes the rest of the town to question their own Christmas beliefs and the meaning of the word miracle. The special also has music from Patti LaBelle and Pentatonix.

— Netflix will stream two NFL games on Christmas Day. First, Super Bowl LVII champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, will take on the Pittsburgh Steelers followed by the Baltimore Ravens facing the Houston Texans. The streamer is gifting the beyhive with Beyoncé this holiday season — as the superstar will perform at halftime during the game featuring her hometown team, the Texans. The Netflix Christmas Day games will also be available on broadcast TV in the competing team cities.

Video journalist Gina Abdy contributed to this report.

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The immigration officers sat in their vehicles before dawn near a two-story building. A New York subway line rumbled overhead, then an officer’s voice crackled over the radio.

After watching for about two hours, he said, “I think that’s Tango,” using a term for target. “Gray hoodie. Backpack. Walking quickly.”

The immigration officers surrounded and handcuffed a 23-year-old man from Ecuador who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.

Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, said a popular misconception is that officers can sweep into a community and pick up a wide swath of people who are in the United States illegally and send them to their home countries.

“It’s called targeted enforcement,” Genalo said. “We don’t grab people and then take them to JFK and put them on a plane.”

With Donald Trump returning to the White House, there is intense interest in how the Republican will carry out his immigration agenda, including a campaign pledge of mass deportations. His priorities could run into the realities faced by agents focused on enforcement and removals, including the unit in New York that offered The Associated Press a glimpse into its operations: The number of people already on its lists to target eclipses the number of officers available to do the work.

The Biden administration had narrowed deportation priorities to public safety threats and recent border crossers. Trump’s incoming “border czar,” Tom Homan, says officials in the new administration also will prioritize those who pose a risk, such as criminals, before moving on to immigrants whom courts have ordered removed from the U.S.

But Homan also has signaled that enforcement could be wider: “If you’re in the country illegally you got a problem,” he said recently on Dr. Phil’s Merit TV.

It’s a tall order.

Deportation orders far outnumber staff

About 1.4 million people have final orders of removal, while about 660,000 under immigration supervision either have been convicted of crimes or are facing charges. But only 6,000 officers within ICE are tasked with monitoring noncitizens in the country and then finding and removing those not eligible to stay.

Those staffing numbers have largely remained static as their caseload has roughly quadrupled over the past decade to 7.6 million. About 10% of that workforce was pulled from their regular duties last year to go to the U.S.-Mexico border at times when immigration spiked.

Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff earlier in the Biden administration, said the number of officers needed to pursue those deemed a public safety threat are at direct odds with the goal of deporting people in large numbers.

“You’re not going to be able to do both of those with the resources you have, with the deportation officers you have,” Houser said. “Just the arithmetic, the time-intensive nature of those sort of arrests will overwhelm any ability to get to those large scale numbers.”

Genalo said the officers in charge of individual cases have to get a lead, ensure they have the legal authority to arrest someone and then track the person down. They generally aren’t allowed to enter a residence, so they want to catch people outside.

How immigration removals work in the field

On this recent operation, about a dozen officers gathered before 5 a.m. at a White Castle parking lot in the Bronx. After putting on their body armor and checking their equipment, they circled around for a briefing.

Besides the 23-year-old Ecuadorian man, they were going after a 36-year-old Mexican man convicted of forcibly touching a young girl and another Ecuadorian also convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.

The first target, the 23-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl, was believed to usually leave the apartment building around 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. Sometimes he was with a woman and child.

“Light came on in the first floor of the apartment,” an officer waiting outside said over the radio. Then later: “Someone came out of the basement, but it’s not our target.”

They finally spotted him, swept him into the back of a vehicle and quickly left the neighborhood.

Inside, the man’s 22-year-old wife didn’t know what had happened until he called later from detention.

In an interview, she said they met in Ecuador and had a child — a bubbly 3-year-old girl with braids — and she was pregnant with their second. He worked construction while she was a manicurist.

She said she knew why her husband had been arrested but felt there were important mitigating factors. She said they knew it was possible her husband could be sent back to Ecuador after his criminal case wrapped up but that it was still a shock.

ICE deported more than 270,000 people over a recent 12-month period, the highest annual tally in a decade, the agency said in a recent report. But it also said it made fewer arrests of noncitizens, in part because of the demand of sending staff to the border. Of those arrested, a greater proportion had serious criminal histories.

Working with local law enforcement

Some cities and states work with ICE to turn over people in their custody who aren’t U.S. citizens.

But many left-leaning states and cities have so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In New York City, for example, ICE used to have an office at the jail to easily take custody of noncitizens. In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation kicking out ICE and restricting police cooperation.

His successor, Eric Adams, has shown willingness to revisit some of those policies. He recently met with Homan and told reporters they agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes.

Genalo said agents spend time and resources picking up immigrants few would argue should have the right to stay in America.

“How can you state that sanctuary policies help the community when you’re releasing all these criminals right back into the community?” he said. “We’re safer when we collaborate.”

Staffing is also an issue. He said he’s supposed to have about 325 officers, but in recent years, the number has been about 30% lower.

Many immigration advocates have long-standing concerns about ICE’s tactics, and those concerns are deepening with Trump’s return to office in January.

Advocates say the incoming administration’s position of going after public safety threats is already longtime policy. They object to rhetoric they say paints immigrants as people to be feared. They say there can be nuances in some cases: Maybe someone committed a crime a long time ago and has been rehabilitated, or someone facing a final order of removal moved and never got the notice.

During Trump’s first term, there were a lot of “collateral arrests” where immigration officers would detain others besides those being targeted, said Jehan Laner, a senior staff attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. That destabilizes communities, she said, adding, “We saw them go after everyone.”

Genalo said he couldn’t comment on the incoming administration’s plans but stressed that officers are going after specific targets with criminal histories. He said he has a docket of about 58,000 people who either have criminal convictions or pending charges.

“I’m pretty sure we’re going to be tied up for a while dealing with the criminal population,” Genalo said.

Associated Press reporter Cedar Attanasio contributed to this report.

By DIDI TANG, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russell Hedrick, a North Carolina farmer, flies drones to spray fertilizers on his corn, soybean and wheat fields at a fraction of what it would cost him to use a conventional ground spreader.

As a volunteer rescuer, Hedrick uses thermal drones to search for people trapped by mudslides and cargo drones to send water and baby formula to those who are stranded — something he did after Hurricane Helene.

Now he is fretting that one day he will have to ground his drone fleet. Most commercial drones sold in the United States, including those used by Hedrick, are made in China. They have become a target of U.S. lawmakers, who see the dominance of Chinese drones not only as an espionage threat but as a commercial threat because they make it nearly impossible for American manufacturers to compete.

It’s another front in the U.S.-China economic and technological competition that’s likely to intensify with the return to the White House in January of Republican Donald Trump, who has promised to get tough on China.

Washington has already placed restrictions on Chinese telecommunications companies and imposed high tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as the U.S. competes with China in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and other areas.

A defense bill that Congress passed on Dec. 18 includes a clause to stop two Chinese companies from selling new drones in the U.S. if a review finds they pose “an unacceptable risk” to American national security. Congress has banned federal agencies from acquiring Chinese drones, with some exceptions, and several states have barred publicly funded programs from using or procuring Chinese drones.

A broader ban is worrisome for Americans for whom drones have become a part of their lives and work. It could disrupt wide-ranging operations, from law enforcement to mapping and filmmaking that drone operators say are viable because of the low cost and high performance of the Chinese drones. American-made drones just aren’t comparable, they say.

American reliance on Chinese-made drones

In Hickory, North Carolina, Hedrick began flying Chinese-made drones in 2019 to fertilize crops and monitor crop health. A drone spreader costs $35,000, while a conventional ground sprayer would set him back $250,000, he said.

“With the drone efficiency, we are able to do things we were never able to do before: to apply fertilizer but use less, which is good for American consumers,” Hedrick said.

But it’s precisely that reliance on Chinese drones that worries U.S. lawmakers.

“It is strategically irresponsible to allow Communist China to be our drone factory,” argued Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who has been tapped by Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She led earlier House efforts to ban new Chinese drones.

It was the role of drones in everyday life that drove Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to get Congress to restrict the purchase of Chinese drones by federal agencies. Those restrictions were included in a defense bill that Democratic President Joe Biden signed last year.

Scott has compared Chinese drones to spy balloons that could “gather data or carry harmful payloads” across America, posing risks to military bases, critical infrastructure and natural resources.

Michael Robbins, president and chief executive officer of AUVSI, an advocacy group for unmanned vehicles such as drones, opposes an immediate ban. Instead, his group has urged the government to support the U.S. drone-making industry through investment so it can catch up with its Chinese competitors in both capability and cost.

He applauds Congress for addressing some of the issues in the 2025 defense budget, including promoting investment in autonomous technology and working to develop a secure supply chain for U.S. drone manufacturing.

That vulnerability was clear earlier this year when Beijing sanctioned the U.S. drone maker Skydio, forcing it to ration its batteries sourced from China.

“This is an attempt to eliminate the leading American drone company and deepen the world’s dependence on Chinese drone suppliers,” wrote Adam Bry, chief executive officer of Skydio.

Citing security interests, China has restricted exports to the U.S. of drone parts, including motors, flight controllers and imaging equipment.

John Goodson, CEO of Darkhive, a San Antonio-based drone maker, said a ban would not stop Chinese drone makers from selling their products elsewhere in the world but could hurt U.S. drone companies that rely on China for parts.

For now, it remains unrealistic to ban Chinese drones when there are few comparable products, said Faine Greenwood, a drone enthusiast who writes extensively about drones. “If we ban the Chinese drones, we knock out many amazing things we do.”

The dominant Chinese player

The best-known Chinese drones are those by DJI Technology Co., a company founded in 2006 and based in the southern city of Shenzhen. It’s named in the defense spending bill, along with another Chinese company, Autel Robotics.

DJI has the lion’s share of the global drone market and is the dominant player in the U.S. market. Its devices are known for their affordability and high performance. They are even used on the battlefield in Ukraine by both sides, even though DJI does not make military drones.

DJI’s drones have been used by first responders to locate disaster victims, mappers to survey roads and utility lines, mosquito control officers to reach swarms of larvae, and filmmakers to capture aerial footage. Police use them to help prevent crime and find missing people.

Hedrick, the North Carolina farmer, mobilized drone search efforts as a volunteer after Helene hit. On the first night, he and his teammates located 150 stranded people. When they could not be immediately rescued, Hedrick said his team used DJI cargo drones to send in supplies.

“I am not going to say I won’t love to have U.S. drones, but I don’t see the American drones as anywhere close to the DJI drones in terms of reliability, ease of use, and just the user-friendly software,” Hedrick said. “The U.S. drones are not as good as the DJI ones but cost twice as much.”

But as U.S.-China relations have soured, DJI drones have come under scrutiny. The U.S. government has put the company on several blacklists, saying it violates human rights by supplying drones to Chinese police to surveil members of the ethnic Uyghur minority, and alleging links to the Chinese military.

DJI has denied wrongdoing and is suing the Pentagon over the designation that it is a Chinese military company. U.S. customs officials also have blocked some DJI shipments over concerns that the products might have been made with forced labor. DJI has called it “a customs-related misunderstanding.”

As for the defense bill, DIJ said it contains no provision that would allow the company to defend itself. “We call on a relevant technical intelligence agency to undertake an audit of our products, and we ask for a fair right of reply to any findings,” DJI said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said China opposes what it calls the politicization of trade.

“The Chinese government firmly supports Chinese companies in carrying out international trade and cooperation in drones for civilian use, and opposes certain countries’ frequent illegal sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals on the grounds of so-called national security,” Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesman, said in a statement.

A lack of alternatives

Several states have already restricted the use of Chinese drones. In Tennessee, public agencies, including police and fire departments, are no longer allowed to purchase DJI drones.

That caused a headache for Capt. Chris Lowe of the Kingsport Fire Department. After his department lost a DJI Mavic Pro drone, he was quoted $5,000 for a replacement from an approved list of drones, when another DJI Mavic Pro would cost $1,000 to $1,500.

“Basically it would be a DJI clone but doesn’t have all the capabilities,” Lowe said of the alternative. Without any state assistance, he said he would either forgo a new drone or tighten the belt in equipment maintenance elsewhere. He said the department has used drones to scope out wildfires, chemical leaks and disaster scenes and to search for missing people. “It’s about life and death,” he said.

In Wimberley, Texas, Gene Robinson has used high-resolution drone images to analyze differences in vegetation to discover buried bodies. He said he helped police find a victim’s buried arm, making prosecution possible. Robinson doesn’t think there’s a viable alternative to the DJI drone he uses.

He said his project at Texas State University’s Forensic Anthropology Center would be “deader than a doornail” if there’s a national ban on Chinese-made drones.

At the Interior Department, the policy against foreign-made drones has hamstrung its drone operations, resulting in the “loss of opportunities to collect data on landscape, natural and cultural resources, wildlife and infrastructure,” according to a September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Florida’s state ban

In Florida, law enforcement officers last year complained to the state senate that a ban on state-funded agencies operating Chinese-made drones left them with costlier aircraft that didn’t perform as well. That prompted state lawmakers to appropriate $25 million to help government-run drone programs acquire compliant models.

Christopher Todd, executive director of the not-for-profit group Airborne International Response Team, described the ban and the subsequent switch as “an absolute mess.”

“Lawmakers failed to understand that this issue is far more complicated than simply changing from one drone to another,” he said. “You need to learn a new user interface with new shortcuts and new protocols, and then you need to change all of the software and accessories and re-examine all of your network configurations to accommodate the technology change.”

But the financial assistance as well as training programs, such as the one provided by his group, made the transition possible, he said.

More than 90% of law enforcement agencies in Florida used DJI drones in 2022, and the share plummeted to about 14% after the ban, according to Todd’s group.

In Orange County, where Orlando is located, the sheriff’s office said it spent nearly $580,000 to replace 18 noncompliant drones last year and received nearly $400,000 in reimbursements from the state.

“The transition has gone well and has simultaneously increased our drone fleet with better capabilities and technology,” the sheriff’s office said.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

Opponents of abortion are increasingly focusing on restricting access to pills, which are the most common way to end a pregnancy in the U.S.

This month, the Texas attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit against a New York doctor, saying she violated Texas law by prescribing abortion pills to a patient there via telemedicine. The suit represents the first lawsuit of its kind and could lead to a legal test for the New York law designed to protect providers there who prescribe the drugs to patients in states with abortion bans.

Anti-abortion officials are taking other steps, too, through legislation and lawsuits.

Abortion rights advocates are also concerned that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration could take action to restrict access if it chose to.

Pills are the most common means of abortion

By the time the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to ban abortion, over half of all abortions were obtained using medication, usually a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.

The drugs are different than Plan B and other emergency contraceptives that are usually taken within three days after possible conception, weeks before women know they’re pregnant. Studies have found they’re generally safe and result in completed abortions more than 97% of the time, which is less effective than procedural abortions.

By last year, nearly two-thirds of abortions were from medications, according to a tally by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access.

Much of the growth has been through abortion pills prescribed via telehealth and mailed to patients. A survey conducted for the Society of Family Planning found that by the first half of 2024, such prescriptions accounted for about one-tenth of abortions in the U.S.

That number has risen rapidly since 2023 when some Democratic-controlled states started adopting laws that seek to protect medical providers in their borders who prescribe abortion pills via telehealth to patients in states where abortion is banned.

“Telehealth for abortion has been a huge success,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the Center of Health and Community and the University of California San Francisco. “It has helped people in an incredible way.”

Texas is going after a New York doctor despite a law intended to protect prescribers

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rolled out a new strategy in the fight over pills this month when he sued Dr. Maggie Carpenter, who is based in New York, alleging she prescribed and sent pills to a Texas woman.

New York is one of at least eight states with a law intended to protect medical providers who prescribe abortion pills to patients in states with bans.

If Texas prevails upon a judge to block Carpenter from prescribing in the state, it’s unclear what would happen next. New York’s shield law would bar it from being enforced in New York, said David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law.

Cohen said he expects any ruling would not have a major chilling effect on other doctors who prescribe out-of-state patients. “They certainly seem undeterred by legal risk,” he said.

And, he said, like illegal drugs, they’ll continue to be available if there’s a demand for them. Cohen said Paxton “is going to plug one hole if he succeeds. There’s no way he plugs them all.”

Another lawsuit from states is trying a different way to restrict pills

Pill prescribing has already withstood one key effort to block it. The U.S. Supreme Court this year ruled that a group of anti-abortion physicians and organizations that represent them lacked the legal standing to force the undoing of federal approvals for mifepristone.

The state attorneys general from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri responded in October with a legal filing contending that they can make such an argument. Instead of focusing on the drug’s initial approval in 2000, they’re looking at later changes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that allow its use for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and telemedicine prescriptions.

There hasn’t yet been a ruling on their case. When there is, it will likely be appealed to a higher court.

States are also considering laws aimed at abortion pills

This year, Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances.” The drugs are still allowed, but medical personnel have to go through extra steps to access them.

Some doctors said in a legal challenge that the change could cause delays in administering them in emergencies, such as when a woman is hemorrhaging after giving birth.

Dr. Jennifer Avengo, director of the New Orleans Health Department, said that in the first few months of enforcement, she did not hear of any cases where the drugs could not be accessed in time.

Additional states are considering ways to restrict abortion pills in their 2025 legislative sessions.

In Tennessee, a Republican state lawmaker has proposed creating a $5 million civil liability against those who deliver or help access abortion pills with the intent of helping someone end a pregnancy.

Rep. Gino Bulso said he filed the bill after learning that abortion pills were being sent to Tennessee despite state law prohibiting such actions. “I began to think about how we might be able to both provide an additional deterrent to companies violating the criminal law and provide a remedy for the family of the unborn children,” he said.

A proposal in Missouri would make it a crime to deliver mifepristone or other drugs with the intent of causing an abortion. In November, the state’s voters adopted a constitutional amendment to allow abortion until fetal viability — which is somewhere past 21 weeks into a pregnancy, though there’s no fixed timeframe.

The federal government could take steps to regulate the pills, too

Trump’s administration also could take action on the pill policy.

One approach that abortion rights advocates have warned about — and which some abortion opponents have suggested — includes enforcing an 1873 law against pills that bans mailing medications or instruments used in abortion. President Joe Biden’s administration has declined to do so.

The FDA could also change its approvals of the drugs, even without being forced to do so by a court ruling.

During his campaign, Trump flip-flopped on abortion policy and at points attempted to distance himself from abortion opponents. Since he won the election, though, he has nominated abortion opponents to administration posts.

In an interview with Time magazine published this month, he gave rambling answers to questions about pills. He said he intended to maintain access but also left the door open to changing his mind.

Associated Press reporter Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this article.

Today is Monday, Dec. 23, the 358th day of 2024. There are eight days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 23, 2003, a jury in Chesapeake, Virginia, sentenced teen sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to life in prison, sparing him the death penalty.

Also on this date:

In 1823, the poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel of New York; the verse, more popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” was later attributed to Clement C. Moore.

In 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act.

In 1941, during World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to Japanese forces.

In 1948, former Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo.

In 1968, 82 crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.

In 1972, in an NFL playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders, Steelers running back Franco Harris scored a game-winning touchdown on a deflected pass with less than 10 seconds left in the game. The “Immaculate Reception,” as the catch came to be known, is often cited as the greatest NFL play of all time.

In 1986, the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana (JEE’-nuh) Yeager, completed the first nonstop, nonrefueled round-the-world flight as it returned safely to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Former Emperor Akihito of Japan is 91.
• Actor-comedian Harry Shearer is 81.
• Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark is 80.
• Actor Susan Lucci is 78.
• Distance runner Bill Rodgers is 77.
• Football Hall of Famer Jack Ham is 76.
• Political commentator William Kristol is 72.
• Author Donna Tartt is 61.
• Rock musician Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is 60.
• Actor Finn Wolfhard is 22.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Farmington Hills Mercy grad Jess Mruzik made 29 kills with a .315 hitting percentage, and Katie Schumacher-Cawley became the first female coach to win a NCAA volleyball championship as Penn State defeated Louisville 3-1 in Sunday’s final.

The Nittany Lions (35-2) earned their record eighth national championship and first since 2014 under the third-year coach, who has led the team while undergoing treatment for breast cancer that was diagnosed in September. Schumacher-Cawley has nonetheless conducted practices between treatments, a determined and emotional journey that provided a rallying point for players and garnered widespread support.

Penn State completed its mission with aggressive play that kept Louisville (30-6) on the defensive to win 25-23, 32-34, 25-20 and 25-17. The Nittany Lions’ third-set rebound was especially critical after the Cardinals won an epic second set 34-32 by rallying from several deficits and fighting off 10 Nittany Lion set points.

A Livonia native, Mruzik was the 2019 national volleyball Gatorade Player of the Year, and won the MIVCA Miss Volleyball award after leading Mercy to the 2019 Division 1 state title. She spent her first three collegiate seasons at Michigan.

Schumacher-Cawley stood close by from the sideline as players converted kills, made crucial digs and blocks at the net, particularly in the final two sets. When the outcome was sealed, players formed a pile on the court as the coaches congratulated each other under a storm of confetti.

Cheering on was an NCAA indoor record crowd of 21,860, mostly dressed in Cardinals red.

Camryn Hannah added 19 kills and Caroline Jurevicius 10 for the Nittany Lions.

Charitie Luper had 21 kills and Sofia Maldonado Diaz 20 for Louisville, which played without All-American hitter Anna DeBeer. The Louisville native sustained a right ankle injury in Thursday’s semifinal against Pittsburgh and did not participate in pregame warmups.

Sunday’s championship was already historic with Schumacher-Cawley facing Louisville coaching counterpart Dani Busboom Kelly, ensuring a female coach would win a national title after 42 previous crowns won by male coaches. Busboom Kelly was making her second finals appearance in three seasons with the Cardinals.

Both coaches had already won titles as players. Schumacher-Cawley helped Penn State win its first title in 1999, while Busboom Kelly helped Nebraska win the 2006 championship.

— By GARY B. GRAVES, Associated Press

Jared Goff threw for 336 yards and three touchdowns, and the Detroit Lions remained on top of the NFC with their franchise-record 13th win, 34-17 over the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

Jameson Williams had a career-high 143 yards receiving on five catches, including an 82-yard touchdown in the second quarter. Jahmyr Gibbs ran for 109 yards and a score, and Detroit (13-2) broke a tie with the 1991 and 2023 teams for the most wins in franchise history. The Lions also set a single-season record for scoring with 493 points.

The Lions took control early against the Bears (4-11), and they even flexed their dominance by executing a trick play in which Goff intentionally stumbled while dropping back. With Detroit players yelling Fumble! and Gibbs pretending to dive for the ball, Goff threw to Sam LaPorta for a 21-yard touchdown that made it 34-14.

It was just the sort of performance Detroit was looking for coming off a 48-42 loss to Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills. That stopped a franchise-best win streak at 11 games and dropped the Lions into a tie atop the conference with Philadelphia and NFC North rival Minnesota.

Caleb Williams threw for 334 yards and two touchdowns following a string of shaky performances for the Bears, who lost their ninth in a row and drew more boos from their frustrated fans.

Goff delivered another strong showing a week after becoming the first NFL player to lose while throwing for 400-plus yards and five TDs with no interceptions. The three-time Pro Bowler completed 23 of 32 passes without an interception and had Lions fans chanting his name.

Along with the deep ball to Jameson Williams and the throw to LaPorta, Goff also threw to Amon-Ra St. Brown for an 8-yard TD in the second quarter.

Gibbs scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter and caught four passes for 45 yards. He joined Barry Sanders and Billy Sims as the only Lions running backs with at least 1,500 yards from scrimmage and 15 TDs.

The Lions improved to 7-0 on the road.

The Bears lost to Detroit for the fifth time in six games. Unlike the matchup on Thanksgiving Day when then-coach Matt Eberflus mismanaged the ending and got fired the next day they never really challenged in this one.

Caleb Williams at least had a better outing after he looked physically and mentally beaten in a lopsided loss at Minnesota. The No. 1 overall draft pick was 26 of 40.

Keenan Allen caught nine passes for a season-high 141 yards, including a 45-yard touchdown near the end of the first half.

Rome Odunze added 77 yards receiving, and Cole Kmet had a touchdown catch.

The Lions haven't lost consecutive games since dropping five in a row early in the 2022 season. And they weren't about to let the Bears change that.

They outscored Chicago 13-0 in the first quarter and struck again early in the second. Jameson Williams beat Jonathan Owens down the middle on a play-action pass and Goff hit him in stride. It was Williams' fourth TD of 50 yards or more this season.

Injuries

Bears: LT Braxton Jones (ankle) exited early in the second quarter after he was hurt blocking on a pass. The Chicago sideline emptied, with players forming a semicircle as medical personnel tended to Jones before he was carted off the field.

Up next

Lions: Visit San Francisco next Monday night in a rematch of last year's NFC championship game.

Bears: Host Seattle on Thursday night.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Today is Sunday, Dec. 22, the 357th day of 2024. There are nine days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 22, 1984, New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot and wounded four young Black men on a Manhattan subway, alleging they were about to rob him. (Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder and assault charges but convicted on a weapons possession charge, ultimately serving eight months of a one-year sentence.)

Also on this date:

In 1894, French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of antisemitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)

In 1944, during the World War II Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe rejected a German demand for surrender, writing “Nuts!” in his official reply.

In 1990, Lech Walesa (lek vah-WEN’-sah) took the oath of office as Poland’s first popularly elected president.

In 2001, Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers. (Reid is serving a life sentence in federal prison.)

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law allowing gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans to serve openly in the military for the first time in history, repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Hector Elizondo is 88.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Steve Carlton is 80.
• Broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer is 79.
• Golf Hall of Famer Jan Stephenson is 73.
• Rapper Luther “Luke” Campbell is 64.
• Actor Ralph Fiennes (rayf fynz) is 62.
• Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is 54.
• Singer-actor Jordin Sparks is 35.
• Racing driver Josef Newgarden is 34.
• Rapper DaBaby is 33.
• Pop singer Meghan Trainor is 31.